Portland Rain in Chapel Hill

Hi all!

I hope that is blog entry finds you well. As I sit writing this the raining is coming down. It has been flirting with the possibility of a downpour all day, but the clouds have finally gave up holding back. I guess it will be a soggy run in the morning.

I am currently training for the Raleigh City of Oaks half marathon on November 1st. After years of running for fun I decided to train for an actual event. I am super excited. I've also found a great running buddy who is training for the Philadelphia marathon. We clock the higher mileage together, making it much more fun.

Ebony (my dog) and I started agility classes this past Thursday. For those of you who aren't familiar, agility is a sort of timed obstacle course for dogs. They go through a series of jumps, tunnels, teeter totters, weave poles, etc. with the goal of beating the clock and performing the actions with precision. The class we are currently taking is a foundations class, so we are learning the basic techniques for training on the obstacle course. The first class was a little slow for my taste, but it was just day 1.

A week ago Friday I presented my first poster on my thesis research project. It was a good experience, but a little different than presenting on my undergrad. research project that I was much more familiar with. This coming Friday I am giving another presentation on my research for a class. I think I am going to get comfortable with my project pretty quickly with all the presentations.

In other lab news...I am presently learning how to manage a mouse colony. Soon I will get to start breeding my mice. Fortunately I am not responsible for the daily care - feeding, watering, cage cleaning. That is a job in itself and there are staff in the mouse facility who do these tasks. I monitor the cages so they don't get overcrowded and characterize the mice (determine their genotype - whether or not they carry the gene that I am interested in). I also select the mice that I want to breed and oversee this process.

This coming Tuesday will be my first homeschool science workshop of the new school year. I have 26 4th-8th grade students who will be learning the basics of chemistry with the help of 6 other graduate students. It seems that many graduate students like to give back to the community, but most of them just don't have the time to organize anything major, thus they enjoy helping out at the workshops - which is awesome! I really enjoy working with the students. Their excitement about looking though a microscope or using 'simple' tools such as pH strips help me keep things in perspective. Organizing the workshops also reminds me of planning for parties or organizing club meetings - 4-H memories!

Well, it is time to sleep! Next time my goal will be to write a little more about my research project.

Happy Fall!

Sarah